UKH

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/us-woman-indicted-for-manslaughter-after-she...

What the actual 'ck is wrong with (some of) our cousins across the water?

It's not quite as simple as the headline sounds. 

The pregnant woman deliberately started an altercation that could have predictably ended with her being shot - to the extent that the shooter was found not responsible. She showed a reckless disregard for the unborn child's life. 

Whether the killing of an unborn child is manslaughter is a different issue. 

Although the article is a little short on information as to what supposedly happened during the actual incident, I am unable to imagine a level of provocation (barring an immediate threat to my own life or that of others) which would compel me to shoot a pregnant woman in the stomach.

Maybe she knocked on someone's door...

Should being shot be a predictable outcome of any altercation in a civilised country?

Thought the discussion was about the US. 

So, a woman made me shoot her bump?!

Perhaps he could have walked away instead of shooting her bump?!  

Neither of the two statements highlighted are supported by the linked article.  Are you using another source that provides more details, or is this conjecture on your part?

That’s insane. No provocation can do that. 

The same story in the Washington Post has more details than the linked article.

The shooter was a woman 

This story suggests otherwise. 

This thread seems largely concerned with whether or not the mother provoked herself being shot.

I don’t think that’s the real issue.

The real issue is the state treating women as almost a legal slave to the unborn child.  What if she’d decided to go out on a hot day and had heatstroke?  Oysters and food poisoning?  

What kind of batshit insane, cruel and controlling legal system punishes mothers beyond their suffering the loss of a child and enduring a gunshot wound?

I’ve seen various written pieces arguing that the dead have more legal rights and protection than pregnant women in parts of the USA and I can see their viewpoint ever more clearly.

The only possible case for criminal charges I could see was if someone provoked violence against themselves with the explicit intent of causing an abortion - but at that point one has to ask how they came to such a desperate place.

For anyone who hasn’t followed the link, have a guess at the colour of the gunshot victim’s skin. 

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/07/26/georgia.mother.sentencing/index.htm...

Another US beauty - also a black woman, strangely enough.

jcm

I'd agree entirely with all of that; I think both perspectives are equally disturbing to be honest.

It took me a while to realise, but America is now firmly on my list of countries that I have no intention of ever visiting. The civilised bits seem perfectly alright, and I have a few perfectly normal American friends, but beneath the surface I can't see much between there and equally backwards religious states in the Middle East. The only difference is the flavour of religion (and the penchant for verbal diarrhea in nasal accents).

Bit awkward because I'd like to take a look at Denali some day...

I don't disagree with any of what you said but the convoluted thinking that leads to this sort of thing isn't limited to unborn children.

I read of the case of a teenager doing life for being at a burglary where his older associate had been shot dead after pulling a gun on an investigating police officer. The law is that he was responsible for the other guy's death because he was engaged in the same activity.

I can see where this is coming from, a desire to deter, but the pragmatic argument against this sort of legislation is that it just doesn't work. The population of the US accounts for about 5% of the world population. The prison population of the US accounts for about 15% of the world prison population. Other than being perverse and cruel, a draconian justice system doesn't cut crime.

So you don’t think that women have a duty not to deliberately endanger their unborn child?

And that if they do so they should be held to  account?

Here's another judgement that smacks of misogyny and/or stupidity. 

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/florida-woman-arrested-for-t...

I don't mean to speak for wintertree who is welcome to correct me if I am wrong here but this part of wintertree's post

"The only possible case for criminal charges I could see was if someone provoked violence against themselves with the explicit intent of causing an abortion - but at that point one has to ask how they came to such a desperate place" is for me the crux of this whole story. (wintertree did you mean miscarriage rather than abortion?)

The article states that this incident happened in Alabama in December 2018.

I don't know what the law on abortion in Alabama was in December 2018 but as of November 2019, according to a bill passed in May 2019, it's illegal in nearly all cases. Who knows what was going through Marshae Jones' mind in Dec 2018, but she was certainly in an environment that is socially anti-abortion. 

Not much more than 100 years in the United Kingdom, a common form of birth control was infanticide of the newborn. 

Legal and moral issues aside, my interpretation here is that Ms Jones was desperate to not carry this pregnancy to full term, and for whatever reason, an abortion was not an option for her. 

So turn your question around a little - where does the woman's "duty" begin and end? 

 

Have you read this???!!! "predictably ended with her being shot" how can this ever be a sentence people can utter in a civilised nation?

Edit :

Sorry Teh_Mark , seems we had the same thoughts. Note to self read thread before posting

It wasn't. It was in America.

If they have the right to abort it, then presumably they do not have a duty not to endanger it.

They don’t in UK law, for instance.

jcm

It's all about money though, privatised companies running the prisons, need prisoners to make money. There's a great documentary about this, it's f*cking madness in the extreme, but prisons want prisoners, that's how they make their money. They're not interested in shorter sentences or rehabilitation.

Its the cornerstone of their “suicide by cop” perspective.  

Someone stole firearms and reported that fact to the police.  It’s very hard to see how they couldn’t arrest her.   I would hope that the equivalent to the CPS or the judge would however use the extremely mitigating circumstances to end the matter before or shortly after the filing of charges.

I see no judgement in the article only the arrest and filing of charges.  

No one reported her she took the guns to the police. You are correct, I shouldn't have said judgement. 

In explaining to the police how she illegally acquired the guns she reported herself for theft of firearms.  In taking them to the police she clearly implicated herself beyond any doubt in illegal possession of firearms.  It’s obvious what her intent and motivation were, and what the spirit of her actions was.  Nevertheless the police had no choice but to arrest her. It seems likely they had little choice in their use of custody post arrest, but I am too ignorant of their law to know. She was potentially walking around in public with loaded firearms having no training in doing so safely.

I hope that the prosecution authorities and the judiciary are entirely lenient with her, but that’s another matter.

It would also be extremely unbalanced for the system to do more than a lenient/token administrative punishment given the wider issues around firearms in the USA.  

If this was the UK, I would expect to see the legal holder of the firearms prosecuted for not storing them with sufficient protection.  Keeping them unsecured and loaded seems to be normal practice in the USA...

Do you think they would have arrested her husband for doing the same thing? 

Nothing wrong with that in the US, presumably - toddlers do it all the time.

jcm

Is this an example of something for which the racists would congratulate themselves,ie "Tough Love" which is generally meted out to the less favoured in society?

It's a funny country. Utterly obsessed about preserving life of the unborn collection of cells, but apparently blase about being offed with a cap in yo' ass once the child has plopped from the womb. Or, in this case, before plopping from the womb.

How can someone who shoots another person, causing the death of an unborn child, get away without sanction...?

My only conclusion is that freedom to casually use a gun trumps preservation of life of an unborn child.

Yes.  Perhaps I’m hopelessly naive.  But walking in to a police station and saying “I committed this serious felony offence” isn’t a smart move.

If that was the case, women would be allowed to do almost nothing during pregnancy as almost any activity exposes the foetus to increased risk.

“Held to account” - the woman got shot in the stomach and her baby died inside her and presumably had to be pulled out in pieces.  She then had to heal from the physical trauma and will likely carry the mental trauma with her for life.  She’s probably going to be unable to bear another child.

Do you really want her to suffer more than that?  What can you possibly hope to achieve by looking that poor woman up?  It’s not going to help her at all, it’s not going to protect anyone else in the world, it’s not going to send a message to any mother that would resonate anything like as much as the loss of a child.  The only purposes I can see that are achieved by locking her up are (a) profit for the prison company and (b) further eroding the rights of women in an already repressive state.

Are you going to tell me that you’ve never got in to an argument or altercation in your life?  I hasten to add that pregnancy can do funny things to even a usually calm person’s judgement.

Sorry.  The article I read mentioned the father and I misunderstood.  

Being held to account doesn’t necessarily mean being punished or locked up by the state.

It means answering for your actions and if there are mitigating circumstances then presumably they will be taken into account.

The law in Alabama is the law whether we like it or not. It’s the same for the law that allowed the shooter not to be prosecuted as it was deemed she was acting in self defence. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Unless you think that we should impose our morals and standards on the rest of the world?

As an aside - My friend who is sat next to me has just told me that your assertion that most activities can harm a foetus is bollocks.

She’s a recently retired midwife so I guess I’ll take her word over yours - unless you too are a midwife? 

Perhaps you should tell them what I said and not what you read.   I made no such assertion in my very clear post.  Most activities humans do increase their exposure to risk, pregnant or not.  You did not qualify anything like “*reasonable* endangerment” in your post. Car crash whilst pregnant?  Food poisoning whilst pregnant?  Mugged in town whilst pregnant?  Hold them all to account ey?  Some of the recent cases in the USA aren’t a million miles from this sort of level, and with some states’ legal stance on the foetus there is no clear line on what is “reasonable”.

You also seem confused - before you were apparently stating your view but now you are going with the angle of respecting foreign laws, be they just or not.

As for the law in Alabama it should be apparent from my posts that I find it abhorrent and repulsive.  Now why don’t you tell us how you feel about it rather than bleating about the bush in apparent general support of it.

That’s ok. The article linked has a typo and calls Ms Jones “Mr Jones” at one point 

My anthropology lecturer told me a long time ago not to except people in other countries or cultures to either behave in the same way nor believe in the same things as I do.

The people of Alabama are well able to decide how their laws work.

There are so many factors at work in this case that hopefully don’t apply in the UK that trying to pass a judgment based on UK values is pointless.

e.g.

gun control - or the lack of it.

overt, institutional racism.

stand your ground right to self defence.

rights of an unborn child 

etc.

Having said all of that, my opinion is that it’s repulsive.

Apparently she was shot 5 times in the stomach.  How that is necessary for self defence?  

That’s not right, is it? It was a single shot fired into the ground, which ricocheted and hit the pregnant woman. Or so I read somewhere - the Guardian does say five times; I now see.

jcm

A single shot which ricocheted I could understand.  I feel we aren't getting the whole story. 

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/pregnant-woman-shot-a...

Says one shot. 

I have no idea.

Details seem either sketchy or to contradict each other.